Suicide Psychiatrist has medical license suspended in Oregon

Yesterday, an article,from Oregon Live reported that Dr Stuart Weisberg, the psychiatrist who planned to open a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, had his medical license suspended by the Oregon Medical Board.

The article in Oregon Live stated:

A Portland psychiatrist who plans to open a private facility where people could end their lives under Oregon’s assisted-suicide law was suspended from medical practice Thursday amid a second investigation for improperly prescribing drugs.

The Oregon Medical Board voted 8-0 to suspend Stuart G. Weisberg, 37, a solo practitioner in Northwest Portland specializing in treating addictions.

Weisberg did not return phone calls Thursday for comment.

Kathleen Haley, the board’s executive director, said the suspension means Weisberg “cannot practice, period.”

In 2006, the board gave Weisberg a five-year reprimand for improperly prescribing psychoactive drugs to seven patients who were recovering drug addicts or suffering chronic pain. Last year, the board lifted the reprimand but put Weisberg under the watch of another doctor.

Haley said Thursday the “practice mentor” recently informed the medical board that Weisberg had terminated the relationship. The board learned that during the mentoring, Weisberg had wrongly authorized a medical-marijuana card for a drug addict and had improperly prescribed a different drug for another patient.

This week, Weisberg invited local physicians and politicians to a July 21 dinner at which he was to unveil his plan to open a “Dignity House” in Portland where the terminally ill could end their lives under his care in accordance with Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act.

In the invitation, Weisberg said he had been inspired by Michigan pathologist Jack Kevorkian, who claims to have ended the lives of 130 people who asked for his help in dying.

Weisberg’s website for his venture, End of Life Consultants LLC, listed a host of charges that would apply for anyone wanting to use “Dignity House” for catering, security, music or flowers.

As much as I found it disgusting that Weisberg planned to set up a Dignitas style suicide clinic in Oregon, he probably would have been more transparent than Compassion & Choices in providing relevant information about the assisted suicide deaths that he would have caused.

Link to my previous blog article on this story: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2010/06/death-with-dignity-house-or-dignitas.html

Link to the article: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/06/oregon_medical_board_suspends.html